Waiter! There’s a Tweet in My Soup

Upscale eateries used to keep track of guest habits, dietary restrictions and tipping habits in a notebook, but now the waiters and maitre d’s take detailed notes using Open Table. They’ll remember your birthday. They’ll track how many times you send food back.

And the really good ones will follow you on Twitter, read your Yelp reviews and your blog posts, so they can pretend to have read your book.

“[If] Malcolm Gladwell sits down with Barry Diller,” says Steve Millington, the manager at Michael’s, power lunch central in Midtown, “I want to make him feel like, ‘Hey, not only do we know who you are, but we really think you’re an amazing author.'”

The restaurants are careful not to be creepy about it. “But while such data can offer important clues about customers’ moods, desires and personalities, restaurants have to be careful not to come off as creepy or, worse yet, downright offensive,” the Post writes.